making the painful decision to give up on a book (regarding the word exchange by alena graedon)

What does it take to make you give up on a book? How bad is too bad? How boring too boring? How lame too lame? How do you decide that there is no further potential coming in a few pages to sweep you off of your feet? You never really know, do you? It always makes me sad to put a book aside—what sweet quotes will never greet my ears? what interesting plot turn? what clever paragraph?—but ultimately life is too short to read mediocre books.

Despite my belief that my time is worth more than so-so writing, I still rarely give up on a book. Maybe I’m just very good at picking out new books (thanks in large part to the book blog hive mind), or maybe there is less poor writing in the world than I sometimes pessimistically think (haha YEAH RIGHT, my brain isn’t capable of that kind of optimism). There were only three books that I started but could not bear to finish in 2014: Rapture of the Nerds by Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow, The City’s Son by Tom Pollock, and All Those Vanished Engines by Paul Park. I haven’t given up on a book I’ve started since September.

But today I decided to put down The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon. The premise sounded interesting, if mildly technophobic (society has gone fully future tablet, the written word is almost obsolete, someone goes missing, conspiracy, mystery, something something word flu), but the execution left me cold, uninterested, and underwhelmed. The opener was wonderful (so wonderful that I will probably share it during a So It Begins post despite not finishing), and everything afterward just a little too meh.

I disliked the female lead, but was persuaded to stay by a male point of view character with a tangential, funnily over-intellectual writing style. I wasn’t pulled in by the mystery (the disappearance of annoying female lead’s father), which was built nowhere near as masterfully as City of Stairs or The Girl in the Road, the two books I read before it. Without the mystery’s tension working on me, the whole thing fell flat. Add to that the fact that the book’s world is entirely white (though there were maybe a few Chinese characters in a sort-of sweat shop situation just before I jumped ship), takes place in New York City (never read a book that took place there before cough cough choke), and you just have something I can’t manage to get excited about.

Every couple of pages I would change my mind about giving up. Maybe there would be something interesting on the next page?! No. Hmm. But the next one?! No. Hmm. Well…one more? Then slowly budding anger: when the fuck is something going to happen to pull me in? When is this jumble of people and places and objects and facts going to turn into a convincing line of story that I can’t look away from? I wanted to know what Graedon would ultimately use the story to say about how technology is changing language and the way we read and think. I still do. But after 68 pages, I decided that finding out wasn’t important enough to merit four more hours of my time.

The Word Exchange is Graedon’s debut novel, so a few bumps can be expected, but The Girl in the Road was Byrne’s debut as well and there are (almost) no bumps in that intense bundle of words. While I won’t give The Word Exchange any slack for being a debut, I also won’t give up on Graedon’s writing. Maybe she’ll hit it out of the park with book number two.

Afterwards, I turned back to my to-read shelf to pick another book. After handling Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater and Ariel by Steven R. Boyett, I decided on This Is the Way the World Ends by James Morrow. On page ten I loved it more than I loved a single line of The Word Exchange. On page 20 I was mentally purchasing all of Morrow’s other books. This is what I read for. This is what I love. This is why you should never feel guilty about putting down a book.

Nicolette Stewart is a writer, editor, and narrative designer based in Frankfurt, Germany. She is the author of The Hunt Frankfurt, and her work can be found in Hunt: Showdown, Robinson: The Journey, TOR Online, Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter, New Escapologist, and Mama Liberada. She currently writes full time for video game developer and publisher Crytek.

12 Comments

I have a really hard time giving up on a book. I keep reading and hoping that it will get better, but often it doesn’t get better. I recently gave up on a book because I wasn’t being entertained by it, and I wasn’t learning anything from it. There was no reason for me to continue reading it. There are so many great books in the world that I don’t need to waste my time on bad ones.

Here here. Though I very much understand why you want to keep trying. Because what if it gets better?! Some books take a good 50 or 100 pages to get rolling. Then again, if an author needs that long to get to the good stuff, I tend to think said author should have done some more editing.

I really struggle with “giving up” on books too. “The Museum of Innocence” is probably the last book that I put down without much of an intention to return to it. There are a few others I am waiting out until I’m ready to tackle them again, but that one was just so… dense…. and uninteresting… that I can’t see myself WANTING to read it again. Maybe I will try picking up where I left off but I can’t really say at this point.

Never heard of that one. Thing is, there are a number of books that I have sort of petered out on reading in the middle of, but I don’t officially give up on all of them. For example, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Shaman. I haven’t looked in it for at least 6 months, but I don’t consider it an official did not finish because I know I will (well probably) return to it later. This book I can’t see myself ever bothering with again.

The last one I put down and kept telling myself I would finish was The God of Small Things, and it is in fact still in my pile of “currently reading” where it has been sitting for about two years so maybe I need to accept the inevitable…

As I hinted at above, for me there is a difference between a book that I theoretically want to read or finish at some point, and one I will officially give up on because I know I don’t want to finish it, probably ever. I have a few books that I have theoretically been “reading” for ages, but that basically are just back on the “to read” pile. But those I know I want to return to someday, when the moment is right. I don’t see that moment ever coming for this one.

I’ve never had a problem giving up on books, as least not as far back as I can remember. I think it’s because I know that I’m very willing to give a book another try in the future, if someone gives me a strong recommendation for doing so. So if I do give up a book, I don’t feel guilty, because I can always come back to it later. In the meantime I can be reading something that’s the right book for me at that time (instead of forcing myself to persist with a book that maybe just isn’t the right book for that moment).

Good for you! Part of me wonders if this is a remnant of being forced to finish books for college courses where I was going to be tested on them. The only book in college that I didn’t finish was Anna Karenina.
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I suppose I technically give up on books more often than I am letting on because sometimes I will have been “reading” something for years, when really the thing is just back on the to-read shelf. But I only call it an official “did not finish” when I don’t want to return ever and just sell or give away the damn thing immediately after.
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It is all about the right book at the right time. Amen.

[…] I loved the beginning of this 2014 debut novel—not for being particularly explosive, but for its promise of interesting language-lover philosophy. I expected great things to follow. But—afuckinglas!—what followed was thoroughly mediocre, and The Word Exchange turned out to be the first book in 2015 that I decided to put down and officially “did not finish.” (I talk about why here.) […]

[…] in May that choosing just three favorites, as I like to do, was damn near impossible. So what if I did not finish The Word Exchange (despite a great start)? I read the intense and stunning The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne, […]

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